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Mottled Python
It is not at all uncommon in Turril to see these small snakes coiled around a person’s upper arm or worn around the neck as a piece of living jewelry. Indeed, these snakes are so prized that a great number of color variants have arisen, indicating the animal’s lineage and by extension its worth. Wealthy Foenarans may keep several of these serpents at home, picking certain individuals of high breeding standard to wear for special occasions just as a Synaran might pick out cufflinks or earrings. By temperament, these pythons are quite gentle and perfectly content and capable of latching onto their owner’s arm and remaining there for the duration of a social dinner. They are calm around children and easy to feed on a diet of grassland mice and rats, provided they have a suitable hiding spot in which to sleep. The snakes grow no larger than three feet, most reaching barely two, with females growing slightly larger than males. They are perfectly harmless to humans, and are rarely known to bite unless placed under severe stress. The gift of a mottled python egg is a generous token in Foenara, especially when given to a foreigner. Egg This multi-colored egg has a soft shell. Hatchling A hatchling python fills its shell, and emerges hungry. The mother stays with the eggs, wrapped around them for protection and shivering to keep them warm, but she plays no part in rearing the young afterward. The little creatures are quite strong for their size, apt to wrap their coils around anything they come across, not to feed on it, but for support. They hunt using heat-sensitive pits on their upper jaw, and will lash out as an incoming rodent or shrew that isn't beyond their weight. The young snake then coils around its miniscule prey until the prey ceases to breathe, then the hatchling consumes it whole. They possess the ability to unhinge part of their jaws to allow them to swallow prey larger than their head, though they seldom take anything greater than the largest girth of their body. Larger distant relatives of the mottled python may grow many times longer than a man and consume prey as large as antelopes, but the mottled pythons themselves seldom pursue prey larger than a medium-sized rat. Adult A sort of puppy among snakes, mottled pythons are known well for their rounded appearance and general good nature. Though sometimes picky eaters, especially when about to shed their skin, these snakes are perfectly content to sit on one’s lap in the warm sun or lounge lazily across one's shoulders for the bulk of the day. Come nighttime, when the snakes are more active, they will explore their environment with a forked tongue sensitive to the faintest smells, and wedge themselves into any cranny their corpulent bodies can manage. Oftentimes, they are poor judges in this skill, and because of their tendency to become unintentional escape artists, their Foenaran caretakers will often settle them in beautiful glass containers hand-blown from many colors and adorned with intricate designs on the edges. Some such enclosures are even inlaid with silver and gold. These containers much be kept out of the sunlight for they heat up quickly, and when outside or travelling, the pythons are most often kept in tightly-sealed baskets or simply around their owner's neck. Additional Information * No. 901 * Obtained from the Stream * Released: June 27, 2018 * Sprites: Tekla * Description: PKGriffin